Health Policy Research Seminar: Caitlin Caspi, SCD

Topic: "Wages, SNAP, and the Safety Net: Findings from a 5-year Study of Nutrition-Related Outcomes Among Low-Wage Workers."

About the Talk: This presentation integrates findings from an NIH-funded natural experiment examining the nutrition-related effects of a phased minimum wage increase in an intervention and comparison city. The study followed low-wage workers over five years (2018–2022), combining difference-in-difference analysis with nested qualitative interviews. Wages increased similarly in both cities, providing no evidence of a differential wage effect attributable to the minimum wage policy. Consistent with this, there were no policy-specific effects on body mass index, food spending, or most nutrition-related and health outcomes. At the same time, food insecurity declined substantially while SNAP participation and benefit amounts increased, particularly during the COVID-19 period. Qualitative findings contextualize these trends, showing how participants experienced changes to SNAP and the broader safety net during the study period. These supports provided meaningful, but temporary, economic relief. The presentation will integrate quantitative and qualitative findings to examine the challenges of evaluating a single economic policy within a dynamic policy environment and consider how wages, nutrition assistance, housing, and other safety-net policies interact to shape economic stability and health.

About the Speaker: Caitlin Caspi, ScD, is Associate Professor in the Department of Allied Health Sciences and serves as the Director of Food Security Initiatives at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Heath. Dr. Caspi is a social epidemiologist focusing on evaluating policies and interventions related to food insecurity, diet quality, and weight outcomes. Dr. Caspi uses a social-ecological lens and a community-engaged approach in her work. Her research incorporates food policies and other social determinants of health to address inequities related to nutrition. Her food insecurity research is largely focused on U.S. food assistance programs and the charitable food system. She has also led several qualitative and quantitative studies aimed at understanding how non-food policies, such as minimum wage and COVID-19 economic relief measures, affect food insecurity and other health outcomes among households with lower incomes. Her work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Healthy Eating Research program, and HHS Administration for Community Living, among other funders. She completed her graduate work at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. She joined the Department of Allied Health Sciences as Associate Professor in 2020, coming from the University of Minnesota’s Department of Family Medicine and Community Health.